They've won 11 flags since 1961. They've come back from nine goals behind to beat Geelong in a storied regular season game in 1989, and heroically hung on in that grand final with concussions, collapsing lungs and bleeding kidneys.

They've won one for Crimmo. They've beaten the Geelong invincibles in 2008. They've beaten the Kennett curse. They've dismantled Essendon in '83 by 83 (points). In 1991, they conquered a dominant West Coast in a Perth final, before repeating that result in the Batmobile grand final at Waverley. They got up from 20 points down in the last quarter of the '71 grand final - a game so violent the replay should be rated R.

They've had too many flags and victories to mention.

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But have the Hawks ever played a better half than the opening two quarters of this grand final ''replay''?

Hawthorn trainspotters can argue about the merits of their team's first half - in which they breached the Fremantle defensive dam and scored 12 goals to two against a team written and directed by Ross Lyon - but it is difficult to remember the Hawks producing anything that was superior to that one crowded hour, not in Alastair Clarkson's time.

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It might have been Hawthorn's finest hour. Not in the sense that the ''finest hour'' cliche is usually applied - this wasn't heroic like Dermie and Dipper in '89. No, it was the finest quality of football that a team can produce.

Consider first the outs for the Hawks: No Luke Hodge calling the shots, no Brian Lake or Ben Stratton in defence. Ben McEvoy's withdrawal left them without an experienced ruckman, forcing lightweight Jon Ceglar to grapple with the competition Godzilla, Aaron Sandilands.

It didn't matter. The Dockers, too, had significant absentees - accentuating the non-grand final feeling - and perhaps the lesson is that frontline midfielders (Nat Fyfe and Michael Barlow) are harder to cover than defenders or rucks.

Hawthorn didn't need Lake, Stratton or Hodge dropping back, for this simple reason: they had the ball in their hands.

Of the many numbers that tell the tale, none - besides 12.5 to 2.8 - speak louder than this: That the first-half Hawks had 261 disposals to Fremantle's 128 - yes, that's more than double, which is extraordinary in any game, much less one between the flag favourites. Another staggering fact - the Hawks had 90 contested balls to the Dockers' 54 in the first half; 90 ''earned balls'' in a half is a stupid number. It should embarrass everyone who played for the Dockers, regardless of the missing midfielders. The minor injuries that Fremantle accrued - Chris Mayne (ankle), Hayden Ballantyne (hip) and Garrick Ibbotson (shoulder) - came after the Hawks had reduced it to rubble.

This task was completed in 17 minutes from the first bounce, when Sam Mitchell was laid on his back by Mayne as the Hawks vaulted forward. A brilliant Cyril Rioli rover's goal - with a trademark evasion - started the blitz.

David Hale slotted the next - alarm bells were sounding for purple people. When Jarryd Roughead's snap from a scrimmage took a sharp left-footed leg-break and bounced through, you sensed that Fremantle needed to do something - like getting the ball. By the 17-minute mark, small forwards Luke Breust and Paul Puopolo had hit the board, and Grant Birchall had nailed one from outside 50 metres. The scores were 6.1 to zero. This doesn't happen to teams coached by Lyon, no matter who's absent

Hawthorn made the Dockers look as dismal and inept as Collingwood were rendered in the season opener.

The pattern didn't alter one iota in the second quarter. The ball remained in brown and gold hands. Ominously, the leading ball-getters included not just usual suspects of Mitchell, Jordan Lewis, Shaun Burgoyne, Roughead and Josh Gibson, but next generation midfielders Liam Shiels, Brad Hill, while Will Langford snapped a brilliant shot from the boundary. Rioli provided a few electrifying moments.

The only way to compete with the Hawks is to either prevent from winning the ball - and using their elite feet - or apply massive pressure that forces them to falter, as Sydney did in the 2012 grand final.

The Dockers managed neither.

The game was gone in 17 minutes, and a rout in 60 minutes.

Hawthorn's most complete hour of football was a reminder to all of the pecking order in this competition. All else that happened - particularly Fremantle's last quarter flurry - was as irrelevant as … the grand final.